


Per Aspera ad Astra

by gayspaceelf



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Grief/Mourning, Survivor Guilt, Tarsus IV, Trans Female Character, Trans Kirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 10:07:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4431176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayspaceelf/pseuds/gayspaceelf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Jane Kirk has never told anyone who she is. And she doesn't plan to.</i>
</p><p>A fic focusing on closeted trans woman Kirk at various points in the AOS timeline. Trigger warnings for deadnaming, implications of child abuse, death/mourning and just generally Tarsus IV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Per Aspera ad Astra

Jane doesn’t dare tell them. And she doubts she ever will.  


It’s her twelfth birthday and her mother greets her with wet eyes. She cries every year, as if by clockwork. Jamie has given up on asking what’s wrong. What her mother needs is someone to blame. Jamie shudders under the empty glare. They need her to be her father’s son. Maybe it’s because they need her to repent, need her to make up for causing his death. Or maybe it’s because she’s the last thing he gave them. It doesn’t matter. Either way, they need her to be _Jimmie._  


She pulls herself out of bed and cooks herself birthday breakfast 

xx

She hates Frank and she knows that Frank hates her right back. She’s given up on trying to please him, given up on trying to be ‘better’. Jane knows that even when Frank’s voice is soft and his words gentle, he hates her just as much. If he wants her to be a rebel without a cause, a teenager with too much to prove, the boy who doesn’t know how much worse it could be, she does not need to bother denying it. She makes her glare as icy as she can as she watches him light the Menorah. 

It’s later and on a different world that she remembers, turning the memories over like a worn coin in her palm. She does not know if she is alive anymore and part of her does not want to know the answer. Because either way, she wasn’t smart enough or brave enough or strong enough to have mattered. To have stopped this while the death count lay in hundreds, instead of thousands. If she is not dead, she whispers to herself as she wakes up, clothes stained scarlet, she deserves to be. 

xx 

She tries to live again, as best she can. Tries to claim her adolescence back, to pretend that she believes she is immortal. It’s impossible to believe that now, after she’s seen death. But she’s a good liar. Eventually the roaring engines of stolen cars and the clink of alcohol bottles make even her believe that she feels alive. 

There are two things she does not need to lie to herself about. One is the rush of emotion, the ecstasy of adrenalin she feels as she fights. Her knuckles are chapped more often than not, scraped raw night after night after night. The second is the spark of light and hope she feels as women kiss her, like she is something precious, something worth saving. And that spark dies every time the women she meets smile. She always thinks of those smiles as twisted, corners curling cruelly, like they know what they are doing to her. And then they call her _Jim_.

xx 

She thought she had found something she was good at. She had beaten the unbeatable test. But she loses the war, misses the pattern. She saves one life on that drill. She saves Sulu. But it’s not enough to atone for what she’s done, what she’s seen. For the second time, she watches a planet die. And for the second time she knows it is her fault. 

She insists on seeing Gaila’s body before they cremate it. And she immediately realises why they had tried to stop her seeing it. Gaila is not as she remembers her, her hair, her face, all burnt. She would be unrecognisable if Jane had not known who she was. And, again, it’s her fault. She used her and she knew it at the time. If she hadn’t taken the codes, if she hadn’t gritted her teeth and carried on as Gaila kissed her, lips soft and enticing, and said that she loved _Jim Kirk_ , she wouldn’t have been on the Farragut, wouldn’t have been caught in the explosion, wouldn’t be lying here, a charred unrecognisable corpse. 

The Enterprise was untouched. And _Jim Kirk_ is a hero.

xx 

Jane does not think. She doesn’t need to. She does not even think of redemption, of giving herself for the greater cause. All she thinks of is that she must keep the Enterprise- her crew, her people, her charges- safe. And if she must die for that, so be it. Scotty finds her first, curled up in the engine core as lights flash red around her. She doesn’t speak, cannot speak, does not have the energy to speak. Until Spock comes to see her. The glass between them obscures their speech, but she forces herself to say a last few words. She cannot, she will not, she must not die telling a lie. She swallows and tells the truth, for the first time in her memory. 

_"I'm scared Spock. Help me not to be."_

She gives what she is certain is her last breath, knowing that she is more than what her past made her.

xx 

She’d always found the idea of rebirth ridiculous. Life was a series of events- not a seamless path- that began with birth and ended with death. And yet here she was, alive. McCoy glanced at her as she sat up, eyes flashing with concern he’d never admit to. 

“Jim? Are you alright.” 

She bit her lip and decided to stop running. 

“Jane. It’s Jane.”


End file.
